Author
Topic: Queen rearing in observation hive (Read 654 times)

I have an 8 frame medium observation hive. The queen is doing an awesome job, and I want to graft from her. Would I be able to pull the queen, graft, and have the observation hive do all the rearing? I'll probably try it anyway, but was wondering if anyone else has already tried, and what problems I might have. I think it would be neat to watch the queen cells develop every day, and hopefully get my kids more interested in beekeeping. Tks>

That depends on several factors. Is this OB busting at the seams? Are you only planning on making a few queens at a time. You need a lot of bees properly feed a bunch of queen cells. Do yo have a flow on? Is your hive full of pollen and honey?If all of your answers are yes, then go for it.Jim

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"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."--Mark Twain

The quality of a queen is directly related to how well she is fed. How well she is fed is directly related to the density of bees and the resources coming in. IF the observation hive is really crowded, they might raise a few quality queens. IF the observation hive is not crowded they will raise even less queens and they will be of poor quality.

Either way it's fun to watch an observation hive raise a queen and get her mated and laying...